arts education

This month, Vassar College and New York Stage and Film’s summer Powerhouse season in Poughkeepsie, NY will present two fully staged productions, three Musical Theater workshops, two Inside Look workshops, and a number of readings. In addition to all of that, their training program is in full swing.

Ed Cheetham is the Producing Director of Powerhouse Theater at Vassar.

The Roundabout Theatre Company in New York City is celebrating it’s 50th Anniversary this year. The largest non-for-profit theatre company in America, Roundabout has grown from a small 150-seat theatre in a converted supermarket basement to operating five stages on and off Broadway.

Education at Roundabout is a branch of the organization that connects with students and teachers through customized school partnerships, residency programs, mentorships and workshops, internships, apprenticeships, backstage tours, talkbacks and pre-show workshops. For each Roundabout production, Education also creates Upstage guides, which include interviews, contextual information, teacher resources and activities, and presents a post-show Lecture Series -- reaching 22,000 students and teachers each year.

This past April, Capital Rep announced the winners of its inaugural Young Playwright Contest and the five winning plays are being produced this week and through the weekend.

From costumes to props and sets all designed and built by the REP’s staff, these productions are giving young peoples’ voices a chance to be heard. The plays are directed by Margaret Hall, theREP’s assistant to the artistic director, and performed by theREP’s new Summer Stage Young Acting Company.

Director Margaret Hall and student playwright Jaimie Gaskell join us to discuss how art and community is being fostered and grown.

Gaskell is a tenth grade student at Greenwich Jr./Sr. High School. Her play, Y.A.P.’s Homeless Youth Hostel, takes us into a residence where protagonists from Young Adult novels await the arrival of their prophecy from the United States Post Office.

Spring Awakening is a rock musical with music by Duncan Sheik and a book and lyrics by Steven Sater. It is based on the 1891 German play Spring Awakening by Frank Wedekind. Set in late-19th century Germany, the musical tells the story of teenagers discovering the inner and outer tumult of sexuality and struggling with repression, rejection and lack of information.

Spring Awakening won Best Musical and several other Tony Awards for its original Broadway run. The Theatre Institute at Sage will present a production of the musical this weekend and next at the James L. Meader Little Theater in Troy, NY.

The production’s director, Leigh Strimbeck, joins us now along with Austin Lombardi, Junior Theater Major, who plays Moritz in the show and Kaleigh Cerqua, Senior Theater Major who is the assistant director.

The duo Honeyhoney - Ben Jaffe and Suzanne Santo - is playing two shows in the region next weekend.

On April 11th they’ll play a benefit concert for Arts Programs at Mt. Greylock Regional High School where Ben attended and graduated from as a mediocre student (his words). For that show, they’ll play WITH Mt. Grelock’s high school band.

The Paul Green Rock Academy is a performance based, interactive music school, built on a method honed over the past 17 years. They believe that the best way to teach most anything, and especially music, is with a hands on approach. Their entire school is dedicated to getting kids playing music in an as authentic way as possible.

Paul Green, founder of The School of Rock, opened The Paul Green Rock Academy in Woodstock, NY about a year ago. On April 8th and 9th the Paul Green Rock Academy will perform at The Bearsville Theatre with special guest, Jon Anderson – playing the music of Yes.

In addition to their legendary year-round program these summer camps for children ages 5-18 are an incredible opportunity for experienced music students and beginners alike. Their camps offer specialized opportunities and incorporate writing, performance and production.

This summer they're offering Rock Strings with Tracy Bonham, Making a Rock Album with Marco Benevento, Analog Recording with Aaron Freeman, Percussion camp with Jason Bowman, and Songwriting with Gail Ann Dorsey.

As our time at The Hyde Collection draws to a close, we want to meet one more very important member of the team here. June Leary is the Hyde’s Curator of Education and is responsible for the programs and lessons being taught here. Alan - June has been the director of Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Southern Adirondacks and Education Manager at The Hyde Collection. Joe – She joins us this morning to give a run-down of her many responsibilities with this summer’s Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit as well for the rest of the museum’s varied mission.

Six public school districts in Columbia County, New York are receiving awards totaling $300,000 from a local foundation to strengthen arts and humanities programs.

The Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation recently announced that the Ellsworth Kelly Foundation is donating the money to the Arts and Humanities Funds for the Hudson, Chatham, Germantown, New Lebanon, Ichabod Crane and Taconic Hills Central School Districts.

Out of the cuts included in the House Ways and Means proposal, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a public agency that promotes investment in the arts and sciences, is facing a 15 percent reduction in state funding. And arts advocates are moving quickly.

Matt Wilson is head of MASSCreative, an organization that lobbies in support of cultural organizations and arts and sciences education.

Earlier this summer, The Empire State Youth Orchestra traveled to China and South Korea. By the time the trip was over, the musicians had performed seven times in outstanding concert halls in Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul and Yeosu. They also played for U.S. service people and their families on the Army Base in Seoul. We spoke with Conductor Helen Cha-Pyo before the tour and she’s back now to with two student musicians to tell us how it went.

One of the largest parts of Tanglewood’s 75-year legacy comes from the hard work and awesome talent on display by the Tanglewood Fellows. As you walk along Tanglewood’s meandering paths, it’s easy to miss a series of small wooden shacks nestled amongst the pine trees. But, it is within those structures the Tanglewood Music Center Fellows hone their craft and learn from the masters. Today we welcome back our good friend Ellen Highstein – the Director of the Tanglewood Music Center – to share the TMC’s participation in tonight’s Tanglewood on Parade events and wrapping up the season.

This past weekend I, along with many other extremely fortunate citizens of the Capital Region, experienced a truly memorable event at RPI’s stunning Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center – or EMPAC. Entitled John Brown’s Body, the event commemorated the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, and was a partnership of the Albany Pro Musica and the New York State Archives Partnership Trust. The music was sometimes haunting, sometimes a call-to-arms, sometimes ethereal, sometimes dirge-like, sometimes jubilant and, at all times, exquisitely beautiful.

For those public broadcasters who always ask the question: “Is classical music dead or doomed?” in interviews before every concert they air, this commentator has a simple coherent answer: “Only if you will it!” Most Public Broadcasting execs seem privately convinced but too chicken to say, what they already believe. So they ask the question, praying someone else will intone the answer they seek. Theirs’ is a suspicion fallaciously raised, ever since ‘Classical Music’ was born. In truth, as the inimitable ‘Satchmo’ Armstrong used to put it: “There’s only two kinds of music… Good and Bad